Yes, perhaps the cow had suffered some other sort of trauma as a result of the "bump". Maybe startled the cow, who ran out into the road and got hit by a truck.
I also know that an expired cow sort of... inflates after a while. And a bump can lead to bystanders who look like this. But there are no stink lines and Faye isn't passing out from the stench (although even fresh cow guts smell pretty obnoxious), so that's probably not it.
And yeah, we're really, really overthinking this.
I mean, that's what we do here. We overthink.
I've sort of wondered how Roko can work as a cop when she faints at the sight of mechanical mayhem. A cop that passes out or starts puking at the sight of blood wouldn't last too long, so in a world with lots of AIs walking around and presumably getting into accidents and shenanigans, an AI cop who bluescreens at mangled synthetic body parts wouldn't be very useful.
Personally, I'm a giant fan of these world-building AI comics, spiced up with the occasional turbo-horndog Faye. Bubbles has created a monster...